2 Answers
2

Disabling a wireless connection in Network Manager deactivates the wireless interface (similar to ifdown or ifconfig down), and then soft-blocks (turns off) the hardware device. It does not unload the wireless driver (kernel module).

You can customize -- to a limited degree -- what happens when Network Manager enables/disables an interface by editing scripts in /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d; see man NetworkManager for more info.

BUT this cannot be used to load/unload the driver via modprobe, because once Network Manager unloads the driver, the interface ceases to exist and it won't be able to bring it back up! (notice when you modprobe -r that the Wireless options completely disappear from the drop-down menu)

So, the best option is to setup a custom keyboard shortcut to a script which unloads/loads the driver; you can add that script to the sudoers file such that no sudo is needed for it. See this question for details.

modprobe -r is removing the driver but only for the session. To do so permanently, you would need to blacklist it, but I don't remember how sorry. the wireless button/switch is meant to turn off your wifi by disabling the driver btw.